What dream have you convinced yourself it's too late to pursue?

I ask because I know how it happens. Life gets full. Responsibility piles up. We become Mom, wife, ministry leader, business owner, and somewhere in all those titles, the thing God placed inside of us gets pushed to the back burner. We tell ourselves it's less important than taking care of everybody else.

But sis, that dream is still yours. During Self-Love September on The Making of a Mompreneur Show, I sat down with Dr. Joi Brown, career and leadership coach, author, empowerment speaker, and CEO of 3EEE Consulting. She calls herself the positive energizer. She also happens to be living proof of everything we talked about.

When the "Setback" Changes Your Whole Trajectory

Dr. Joi graduated high school as valedictorian. Destined for greatness, as she put it. Then she found herself pregnant in college.

You already know what people say to a young woman in that position. "You're not going to finish school. You're not going to make anything of yourself." Dr. Joi decided otherwise. She got scholarships, transferred schools, took one week off after having her son, and graduated on time with honors.

Here's the part that got me. She told me, "I would not be where I am today if I didn't have my son." Having him is what led her to a job at the Office of Personnel Management in the federal government, and that job became the start of more than 28 years in HR. People saw something in her before there was a degree, a doctorate, or a single award, and they poured into her.

What some folks would have called the end turned out to be the beginning.

Nobody Makes It by Themselves

Dr. Joi was clear about this: she did not get here alone. She had family, extended family, and friends who helped her go to school, work, and raise her son all at the same time.

And she built community on purpose. When she was a single mother, she led the single parent ministry at her church. Those women are still her friends today. Their sons were in Boy Scouts together, became Eagle Scouts together, and now those sons are married. They spent years trading "Can you get my son?" for "Can I get yours?"

That's what community looks like for moms. We support each other. It's exactly why the Mompreneur HQ community exists, because building a business while raising a family can feel like too much to juggle on your own.

So if you're in an "I just can't" season, start there. Establish your support system. Make sure wherever you are, somebody knows you.

Short-Term Goals, Long-Term Dreams, and Timing

Dr. Joi's second piece of advice was to look at your goals and sort them out. What's short-term? What's long-term?

Her short-term goal was graduating on time, and if that meant summer classes, she took summer classes. But she also wanted to pledge a sorority. She went to the interest meeting, looked at her life, and said, "I just had my son. I'm not on campus. I'm not going to be able to do this."

She didn't throw the dream away. She just recognized it wasn't the priority for that season. After she graduated, that goal came back around and came to pass.

Timing is everything. The Bible tells us there's a time for everything and a season for every purpose. When your children are little, your capacity looks one way. When they're older and driving, you have more room. A dream that doesn't fit right now may very well be in the plan for later.

What to Do While You Wait

So what do you do when it looks like everyone else is moving forward and you're stuck in a holding pattern?

Look at what you can do right now. Stop watching what so-and-so is doing. Remember, you might be seeing somebody at year ten of their success when they spent the first nine struggling like nobody's business. You're in year one. None of this is overnight.

Start with gratitude and give yourself grace. You are a phenomenal woman and a phenomenal mother. Dr. Joi took her son with her to school while she worked on her master's. Years later, she watched him earn his own. If she had spent that whole season wishing she were somewhere else, she would have missed the journey.

Write the vision. Dr. Joi is big on vision boards. Even when she couldn't accomplish everything yet, she wrote the vision, made it plain, put it up, and kept talking about it.

Put your mask on first. You can't be the best mom, coach, or anything else if you're pouring from an empty cup. If you run out of air, now both of you are out of air.

Keep working. Faith and works go together. If you believe your dream is only delayed, put in the work, even if it's 10 or 15 minutes a day writing captions for a video you want to record. Wait patiently, not anxiously.

Let Life Reroute You

Dr. Joi compared life to a GPS. You put in a destination, you miss your turn, and guess what? It reroutes.

Life can be rerouted, reset, and renewed. Sometimes we need to reevaluate some things, remove some things, and purge some things. And yes, she said that includes people. If you're trying to go to the next level, you've got to let go of some stuff.

I had to pull my toes back on that one. I had just been telling a girlfriend how I couldn't donate a single thing in my closet because I might wear that pants set with that top someday. Girl, let it go. Make room for what else God has in store.

It's Never Too Late, So Do It Anyway

For the mom who truly believes her time has passed, Dr. Joi said it plainly: it is never too late. Never too late to reset. Never too late to figure out what you want to be when you grow up.

And stop waiting on perfect. Her words: "I'm going to hit the play button and go live and do what I need to do." I have a book around here somewhere about doing it scared, and that's the message for everybody in Perfectionists Anonymous. Press record. Go live. Your hand might be shaking the whole time.

The worst you can do is the worst you can do. Every mistake is a building block, because you'll get the feedback you need for next time. Somebody is going to text you, "Girl, what was that?" and you'll do better on the next one. And once it's done, you get to say, "Oh my gosh, I did it."

If it fails? It's okay. A setback is a setup for a comeback.

Your Dream Is Still Yours

Dr. Joi left us with this, and I'll leave it with you: don't lose sight of who you are. Find your voice, because your voice matters. Your children need you. The world needs you. And another sister is going to need you.

So build your community. Set your short-term and long-term goals. Respect the timing of your season. Give yourself grace. Then go reignite that dream, because it's still possible.

Now tell me: what dream are you reclaiming?